


citrullus lanatus

by gayprophets



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Dad Powers, Ficlet, Friendship, Gardens & Gardening, Gen, Humor, abuse of fruits
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-27
Updated: 2019-07-27
Packaged: 2020-07-23 00:49:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20001247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gayprophets/pseuds/gayprophets
Summary: Dani's been gardening since she was a kid, but they were houseplants. She struggles a little with the harvesting of fruit at the lodge. Barclay helps her out.





	citrullus lanatus

Dani’s been taking care of plants since she was a little kid, but her garden was mostly indoors - orchids, cacti, tropical plants, and whatever she could steal via propagation from the royal gardens. The softcore thievery was a habit she picked up from her mother, who avidly enabled her father’s plant addiction in whatever ways she could, despite having a black thumb herself. Her home was, frankly, more of a greenhouse than anything. 

She never had an outside garden, and she never had a garden with fruits and vegetables until she got exiled and started living at Amnesty Lodge. She was happy to take it over from Barclay, and after a bit of an adjustment period, she’s been doing fine. Harvesting what grows there isn’t difficult, she watches the tomatoes until they change color and nabs the peas when they seem ready, and she’s done okay so far.

The watermelons are a different story. Dani kneels to pull out some lambsquarters that’s sprouted and then stares at the fat watermelons that surround her. The last one she brought in wasn’t quite ripe, but the one before that  _ was. _ To Dani, there was no visible difference between the two.

The sky suddenly goes dark, and Dani looks up to see Barclay looming over her. 

“Need any help?” he asks.

“They all  _ look _ done,” Dani says, standing up and putting her hands on her hips. The watermelon continues to lie on the ground, innocently. 

Barclay squats down and slaps it, frowns, and then slaps the one next to it. “It’s not, but this one is.”

Dani throws her hands in the air. “ _ How _ ,” she says, “How in the world can you tell?!”

Barclay slaps the apparently ripe one again. “Can you not hear the difference?” He looks up at her in confusion, eyebrows raised.

“No!” Dani exclaims. 

“Listen close,” Barclay instructs her, slapping the ripe one again, then the unripe one.

“It  _ sounds _ like you’re abusing my fruit,” Dani says.

Barclay sighs. “Just can’t teach that skill, I guess. There’s also this.” He gently turns the watermelons over on their sides, points at the underneath. “The more yellow it is, the better. Think butter, not cream cheese.”

“Couldn’t you have just told me that in the first place?” Dani asks.

“I thought you’d be able to hear the difference -,”

“There is  _ no difference!” _ Dani yelps, cutting him off. “All I hear is you  _ beating up _ my fruit!”

Barclay looks up at her and blinks once, slowly, before slapping the watermelons like he’s playing bongo drums. Dani has to chase him out of the garden to get him to stop, wielding her trowel like a knife as he laughs at her. He picks a tomato off the plant on his way out and bites into it like it’s an apple.

The next watermelon she brings in is ripe.

**Author's Note:**

> dads just like, slap watermelons and Know.  
> this is nonsense jkdkjfhkhjf but if you have any lil ficlet ideas like this feel free to shoot them over to me at elfglock on tumblr and i might do them


End file.
